Communications in the veterinary practice is normally a topic for debate. “But I told them that!” or “How did the client misunderstand me?” How often have you heard vets say those words in practice? So, where is this breakdown in communication coming from? Are we selecting the right channels and the right messages to communicate the intended message?
People live fast-paced lives and are forced to continuously multitask, which means that they are in a constant state of partial attention. This puts extra pressure on us to grab attention that is constantly divided [1].
The other issue is that not every client’s preferred way of communication is what you currently offer. Some of the innovative strategies are required to get clients to actively listen and selecting the platform to use is get your intended message across is essential.
Your veterinary practice can use an integrated marketing communications (IMC) framework. But what is it and how can you use it?
Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) is defined as a company’s amalgamation of all available communication channels to send a consistent, clear, and compelling message about the business and its brand [3]. Other studies define IMC as an organisation’s ability to apply tacit knowledge and decision-making to integrate and change tangible assets (e.g. point of sale, advertisements) and intangible assets (e.g. slogans and brand identity) into performance results (e.g. sales, return on investment (ROI) and brand equity) [4,6]. By successfully implementing IMC, it becomes the strategic capability of the organisation [7].
IMC is thus the way of a business to use many different types of media available to them to best communicate the intended message across. Organisations can integrate new and traditional types of media to achieve desired effects and although interactions and cross effects exist between traditional and new media types, the strength or weaknesses between these interactions have not yet been established [1,2,5].
What do you need to implement an IMC?
1. Identify the target audience
As a practice, it is essential that you know who you would like to target audience: dog owners, cat owners, rabbit owners, etc. Are you trying to acquire new pet owners or wanting to have lapsed clients start bringing their geriatric pets in again? Additionally, you can use demographics of owners to define your target audience: millennials are a great audience to target as they are having children later in life and treat their pets as their kids, thus they are often more willing to spend on veterinary care if they understand the value.
2. Establish the communication objective
What are you trying to communicate to your client? What would you like to achieve with your message? Would you like to:
- Create awareness or a new product, service or your practice
- Impart knowledge as an authority figure of veterinary science
- Project a brand image
- Influence or shape attitudes clients may have towards your practice
- Stimulate a desire or want, or
- Effect a sale
Each of these objectives require the message to be designed accordingly.
3. Design the message
Most importantly – keep it simple but not condescending. Use simple terms and pictures if you can. Tell the owner of the consequences of not addressing the issue and tell stories! Keep the communication objective in mind so ensure that your message gets the desired outcome.
4. Select the media
Should your message be communicated using traditional or digital media? When you know who you are targeting, selecting the media becomes easier. Often different media channels are selected and you can make a display in the waiting room, have a poster in the consult room, do some Facebook posts, have the receptionists discuss it and the veterinarians mention it during consultations. Remember, the source selected must be matched to both the target audience as well as the objective of the message.
5. Select the message source
Should one of your veterinarians write an article where-in he or she references journal articles, or will the message be written by an animal behaviourist, physiotherapist, veterinary nurse or by the receptionist? Will you share information that a pharmaceutical company or pet food company? Who is the most appropriate source of the information that you want to get across?
You can also use a local newspaper or online community platform to put a message out. Often happy clients, a reporter, blogger or any external source will carry more weight with clients as they will not feel that you are actively selling to them.
6. Seek feedback on its effectiveness
Always, always, always do a post-mortem on any campaign, post or message that you spent time and money on. If you discounted your dental scaling and polishing by 10% - how many more dentals did you see in that month when compared to previous months? Was it worth the effort? Ask your clients whether they made use of the promotion and if not, why not? Use the information gathered to structure your next campaign.
Do you use an integrated marketing communications framework? Do you think it will help you in your practice or do you think that posting a message on Facebook and hope that your clients will receive it in the intended way.
References:
- Batra, R. & Keller, K. (2016). Integrating Marketing Communications: New Findings, New Lessons, and New Ideas. Journal Of Marketing, 80(6), 122-145.
- Joo, M., Wilbur, K., Cowgill, B., & Zhu, Y. (2014). Television Advertising and Online Search. Management Science, 60(1), 56-73.
- Kotler, P., Armstrong, G., & Tait, M. (2010). Principles of marketing. Cape Town: Pearson Education South Africa.
- Luxton, S., Reid, M., & Mavondo, F. (2014). Integrated Marketing Communication Capability and Brand Performance. Journal Of Advertising, 44(1), 37-46.
- Mayzlin, D. & Shin, J. (2011). Uninformative Advertising as an Invitation to Search. Marketing Science, 30(4), 666-685.
- O'Cass, A. & Weerawardena, J. (2010). The effects of perceived industry competitive intensity and marketing-related capabilities: Drivers of superior brand performance. Industrial Marketing Management, 39(4), 571-581.
- Ratnatunga, J. & Ewing, M. (2005). The Brand Capability Value of Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC). Journal Of Advertising, 34(4), 25-40.
- Ratnatunga, J. & Ewing, M. (2009). An ex-ante approach to brand capability valuation. Journal Of Business Research, 62(3), 323-331.
